


Jim and Ichigo: Cousins With Issues

by Acorn_With_A_Notebook



Series: Bleach Hunters [1]
Category: Bleach, Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Found Family, Minor Aaarrrgghh/Blinky (Trollhunters), Parent Blinky (Trollhunters), awkward highschoolers doing awkward highschooler things while also battling the forces of evil, blinky cusses in troll, i mean jim and ichigo are technically related but the found family still stands, ichigo fight-on-sights trolls, parent kisuke urahara (but only mentioned for now cause he's not in this fic yet)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 19:47:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acorn_With_A_Notebook/pseuds/Acorn_With_A_Notebook
Summary: After the Winter War is over, Ichigo feels pretty useless without his power. It wouldn't be so bad if everyone around him didn't treat him like glass, or if his shinigami friends would at least talk to him. When his mother's sister gets in touch and invites him to stay with her, he jumps at the chance to be anywhere but Karakura.Jim is just trying to figure out what he wants from life, and isn't sure what to make of his new cousin. He'd like to be friends, but Ichigo is pretty closed off.Both of them are in for a ride when some trolls show up in the basement. With the help of Wingman Toby, a strange cast of trolls, and each other, these two might just be able to figure out their issues (and maybe save the world).





	Jim and Ichigo: Cousins With Issues

**Author's Note:**

> Three months after the Winter War  
> The Bount Arc is canon here because I say so  
> Unpopular opinion: the Bount Arc wasn't bad, it just went on a lot longer than it should have

Ichigo awoke to the sun assaulting his tightly closed, sleep heavy eyes.  
Correction- Ichigo woke up to the sound of his cousin-he-didn’t-know-he-had getting up, then resolutely shoved his face deeper into his pillow. He honestly could have killed a man when Jim came back to their shared room some time later and threw open the blinds, letting in some Bright California Sun.  
Seriously, it was February. The sun had altogether zero business being that bright at this time of year.  
“Mmmph! Can you not?” Ichigo pulled his covers over his face. Figures his surprise cousin would be a morning person, in direct conflict with his own more nocturnal inclinations.  
“Come on, you got to sleep for so much extra time while I got the meatloaf in the oven,” Jim said as he yanked the covers away. “I’ve already got your clothes laid out for you. Just get dressed and come downstairs.”  
Ichigo looked over at the bureau, and sure enough, a set of his clothes was waiting for him. He thought about making a snarky comment about how Jim was acting like a mother hen, but he didn’t have the energy for it, and Jim was already gone.  
Groaning, Ichigo hauled himself out of bed and stretched, popping a few joints. It had been about three months since he’d ripped apart his own soul to protect his friends, and the place that Zangetsu once filled still ached fairly consistently—not that he’d ever admit that to anyone. He didn’t need his friends and family treating him like glass any more than they already did. And how could he even begin to explain all that spirit crap to normal humans like the Lakes? (It was still so wild to him that his mother had had an entire sister that no one had ever mentioned before.)  
Jim was still in the kitchen when Ichigo got downstairs. The living room looked like a fair deal of cleaning had been done. At ass o’clock in the morning. On a Monday.  
Morning people.  
“Food’s on the table, eat quick we’re late,” Jim called as he bustled past with a tray of food, probably for his mother. Seeing how much he cared for her stirred a sad sort of nostalgia in Ichigo’s chest, and brought up feelings he’d been stomping down since he was nine.  
Ichigo wasn’t particularly used to breakfast—most of his life he’d just wake up and jump out the door—but after a week and a half of living in the Lake house, he knew if he skipped ‘the most important meal of the day’ Jim would fuss and worry, and he really couldn’t stand people worrying about him. So he horked down the omelet in three bites before Jim came back down and put a paper bag in his hands. He threw it in his school bag and followed Jim to the garage for their bikes.  
He helped clean up the upturned trash bin, and mostly tuned out Jim and Toby’s meatloaf discussion. They were late, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to care (he really did want to care), but… he didn’t really have it in him. He barely had the energy to scowl these days, which was fine, since Arcadia didn’t seem so hostile to bright hair, and he didn’t need to act the tough guy to keep people away. But still.  
He was taking the ride slow and hanging back behind Toby when Jim shot like a cannon over the edge of the canal. So he wasn’t there to take the lead when Jim was called by name by a strange disembodied voice. So his cousin went digging through a pile of suspicious looking rocks and picked up a glowing amulet. The whole thing looked very sketchy to Ichigo, and he planned to say as much. But the school bell rang, and Jim and Toby abandoned their investigation and raced for the school. And of course Jim took the damn thing with him. (Ichigo probably would have down the same, but he still wasn’t happy about it.)  
Ichigo stayed under the bridge a moment longer. The stone pile was giving him some kind of vibe, the way spirits used to, but different somehow. He wished he still had his powers, so he could investigate that vibe. But then if he’d still had his powers, he’d still be back in Karakura with his friends. (He’d still have friends.)  
Figuring he ought to get to school sooner or later, he turned to walk back to his bike. And saw six glowing eyes watching his cousin from the sewers. And then the six eyes saw him.  
Ichigo and the thing in the sewers had a brief stare down, then the thing fled deeper into the shadows. Something stirred in Ichigo’s chest, and he grabbed his bike and booked it up the side of the canal. Strangely, he felt more alive than he’d felt since doing the Mugetsu. (He hadn’t even realized how shit he’d felt until now.) Something was lurking in the sewers of Arcadia. Something with many glowing eyes, which Ichigo could see.  
He shouldn’t have been so exited by the idea of a threat. He should just call Kisuke and let someone else handle this, someone who had more than just a third of a soul to run off of. But he couldn’t ignore the way his blood was singing.  
***  
It figured that Ichigo’s first day at Arcadia Oaks High would be spent entirely in orientation (that’s what he gets for starting at a new school partway into the semester). He really needed to talk to Jim (and possibly Toby), but he was at the mercy of school administration.  
Once the day finally ended and the Principal released him (ten minutes late! His bad attendance record at Karakura High had come back to bite him in the ass) Ichigo made a beeline for the bike racks. He cursed quietly under his breath when he found that Jim and Toby’s bikes were already gone. Why wouldn’t they be? Ichigo had only spent the past week telling them he didn’t need a babysitter every time they’d offered to show him around.  
“Ah, Mr. Kurosaki, do you have a moment?” Ichigo jumped at the sound of a soft British accent, and turned to meet a man with greying hair and a tweed jacket.  
“Uh, sure,” he lied. He really didn’t like how this guy was able to sneak up on him like that. Even without his powers, Ichigo was difficult to take by surprise. His father had made sure of that, if nothing else.  
“I’m glad I caught you. Walter Strickler, at your service, resident history teacher and manager of your new homeroom.” Mr. Strickler offered his hand, which Ichigo shook out of obligation. “Strong grip you have there.”  
“Thanks, I guess.” Ichigo shrunk into his shoulders, bracing for the lecture on how delinquency would not be tolerated, etc., etc. He’d heard it from just about every school official he’d met since middle school, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear through.  
“I wanted to give you my number,” Strickler said, pulling out a piece of paper he’d clearly prepared ahead of time.  
Ichigo blinked a bit. “You… do?”  
“Of course,” Strickler replied. “I’ve looked over your file. Despite an abysmal attendance record and negative comments from past teachers, you have a solid GPA and astounding test results. Despite your… troubles, evidence shows you’re a bright young man, if one is willing to look.”  
“Uh huh.” Ichigo was sort of lost.  
“I feel there’s been a disconnect between you and your learning environment, and now that you’re in my care, I would like to bridge that gap.” He put the paper in Ichigo’s hands.  
“Um… thanks…” Ichigo stared at Mr. Strickler, trying to get a read on the guy. The other foot would drop soon, he was sure.  
“I’ve also provided my faculty email and office hours. I strongly encourage you to put these resources to use.” Strickler then gently placed a hand on Ichigo’s shoulder, telegraphing every part of the move. “I may not have all the details,” he began, “but I understand that you’ve been experiencing a bit of a rough patch. I want you to know that I’m here for you, whether you need extra help on school work, or if you ever just need to talk.”  
“Thank… you?” This was not how first meetings with teachers went. Not for Ichigo Kurosaki.  
“Have a wonderful afternoon, Mr. Kurosaki, and welcome to Arcadia Oaks.”  
Ichigo felt like he had stumbled into the Twilight Zone at some point. He didn’t like it.  
***  
“See you later, Tobes!” Jim called as he and his best friend headed home to opposite sides of the street. He still felt a little bad about leaving school without Ichigo, but not bad enough to step on the guy’s toes when he made it very clear he wanted to be left to his own devices. He was sure Ichigo would be fine on his own, anyway. That’s what he’d assured his mom of, at least.  
He kind of wished his cousin wasn’t so stand-offish. He’d grown up with all sorts of stories about his mom’s cool older sister, how she’d gone out and did things for love, and didn’t even care that she got disowned for it. Mom had always said that she wished she’d had the same courage to leave that Aunt Masaki had, instead of staying and marrying whichever man her family had liked best. After dad walked out, she’d spent years trying to track down her sister, and while Masaki may have been dead and gone, Barbara was positively ecstatic to have her eldest child staying with them, and that excitement had rubbed off on Jim very quickly.  
The only problem was that Ichigo had been staying with them for a week and a half, and all he knew about the guy was that he was a bit of a loner, drank tea like an old man, and didn’t sleep well (except for in the morning, when he slept too well).  
His phone buzzed with the ringtone he’d set for his best friend. “Hey, Tobes.”  
“Did it talk again? Did it do anything interesting?”  
“Nope. Like my mysterious new cousin, it remains quiet.”  
Toby’s Nana could be heard from the other end, calling him for dinner. “In a minute, Nana! I’ve gotta go. Text me if it does anything cool. And don’t worry about Ichigo, he’ll open up eventually. You were kind of the same way when we first met.” With that, Toby hung up.  
Jim went back to examining the amulet. He tried introducing himself, then immediately felt silly. He had circled around to threatening to put it up on EBay when he heard a clattering in the basement.  
Jim put the amulet down and went to the basement door. He opened it and turned on the light to the sound of more clattering. “Raccoons!” He picked up the nearest broom and marched down the stairs with full intent to defend the sanctity of his home.  
Instead, the light blew out, and a big blue thing came up behind him, causing his brain to short-circuit from fear and shock. He was absolutely mentally wrecked when another, bigger thing appeared from the dark.  
First instinct: scream.  
No effect.  
Second instinct: run.  
The big, mossy green one grabbed him by the leg and held him upside-down until the blue one (it had six eyes!) requested that Jim be put down.  
Third instinct: scream and run. Because it worked so well the first time. Jim bounced back and forth between Big and Mossy’s hands a couple of times. Lots of Eyes was saying some stuff about trolls, and a sacred duty, and honor. Was he even aware of how much Jim was freaking out?  
Jim heard the front door slam, and Ichigo calling his name loudly. Of all the times for his cousin to become interested in talking!  
“Ichigo! Don’t come down!” Jim shouted back. “Get out of here! Run!”  
Of course instead of following Jim’s advice, Ichigo came straight to the basement door, where his eyes zeroed in almost immediately on Lots of Eyes. “You,” he said with a vicious sort of… satisfaction?  
“Ah, you’d be that you man from the canal,” said Lots of Eyes. “Pay no attention to-“ Lots of Eyes took a broom to the face.  
Jim had barely seen Ichigo move. One moment he was at the top of the stairs, the next he was swinging another one of the brooms at Lots of Eyes.  
“No hurting Blinky,” said Big and Mossy, putting a hand between Ichigo and Blinky. His efforts earned him the back end of Ichigo’s broom stabbed into his eye, followed by the bristled end whapping him on the nose. “Waaaggh!” Cried Big and Mossy as he stumbled back, bringing one hand to his face and accidently hitting Jim with the other.  
“Waaaggh!” Cried Jim as he was knocked against the hot furnace, leaving a slight burn.  
“Waaaggh!” Cried Blinky as Ichigo continued assaulting him with a broom.  
“Huuuh!” Cried Ichigo as he continued to beat up a stone monster with nothing but a broom and some bull-headed stubbornness.  
“Would you-“ Whap! “-kindly-“ Smack! “-cease-“ Thok! “-hostility!” Whap! “Scumoftheearth!” Snap! The broom broke. So Ichigo started punching, which, while sort of effective, mostly resulted in Ichigo getting bloody knuckles. He was nothing if not persistent, though. Which meant very bloody knuckles.  
Jim was losing his mind. Absolutely losing his mind. Trolls. In his basement. An entire veil lurking just beyond the veil of what he knew. His quiet, kind of shy cousin going to town beating up the trolls in his basement. Trolls.  
Jim couldn’t really take this anymore, and promptly fainted. What a day.  
***  
Jim bolted up with a shout. It took him a few frantic breaths to realize that he was in his own bed. So a dream then. He’d just had a bad dream.  
“You’re up,” Ichigo said, standing in the doorway, shadows from his shoulder-length hair obscuring part of his face. Weird. He was never up before Jim. But then, that could have been due to time-zone differences.  
“What time is it?” Jim asked, looking at his alarm clock, which was unplugged for some reason (probably Ichigo).  
“Morning.” Ichigo supplied, rather unhelpfully. He crossed the room. “I don’t understand everyone’s deal with breakfast, but I know it’s important to you, so I made you some toast and sliced fruit.” He picked up a plate from the desk and offered it to Jim.  
“Thanks,” said Jim as he accepted the plate. Then he noticed Ichigo’s bandaged hands, and looked up to see bruised arms, a black eye that took up half his face, and some more bandages on his head.  
“There’s some tea here, too, if you want it. It’s matcha. My, uh, teacher, used to make it when I was hurt.” Ichigo brought a hand to the back of his neck and looked away. “Well, more often than just when I was hurt, but… whatever.”  
“What happened?” Jim asked as he tried to get up, but was stopped by a stab of pain, right where he’d dreamed he’d hit the furnace when the big one had clipped him. It had been a dream, hadn’t it?  
“Take it easy.” Ichigo put his hands on Jim’s shoulders and sat facing him on the bed. “Let’s take a look.” He pulled up a first-aid kit from next to the bed, then pushed up Jim’s pajama shirt (he did not remember putting on his pajamas last night) to reveal some gauze and bandages.  
Jim looked elsewhere as Ichigo pulled the dressings away and gently cleaned what was probably a light burn. Then he felt his cousin dab at it with a cotton ball, and finally applying some ointment. Some new gauze and bandages went on, and Ichigo smoothed Jim’s pajama shirt down over it.  
“All set.” Ichigo gave Jim a rough pat on the shoulder. “That’ll sting for a couple’a days, and you might have a slight concussion from when your head hit the floor last night, but you’re basically fine.”  
This was so surreal. Last night had happened. And here Ichigo was, going about his business as if everything were completely normal. Like they went through this sort of routine every morning. He’s even made Jim breakfast (even if it was just toast and fruit), and had spoken to him more in the past ten minutes than he had in a week and a half.  
Ichigo was saying more stuff now, but Jim was blanking on it. Ichigo must have figured that, because he pressed the cup of tea into Jim’s hands and got up to leave. Before he left, he packed up the first-aid kit (which Jim realized did not belong to the Lake residence) and stashed it under his own bed across the room.  
Jim did not have space in his head for all these questions.  
Once Ichigo was gone, Jim grabbed his phone and hit speed dial. Tobes was not going to believe any of this.  
***  
Toby did not get the chance to not believe it, because he was at the dentist, which Jim was low-key kind of salty about, because one would think Best Friend Privileges would include being warned in advance when your best friend would be rendered unavailable by dental surgery.  
He’d almost told Strickler, but had chickened out. Something about his favorite teacher thinking he’d lost his mind was kind of unappealing. He’d at least gotten some good advice and support out of that visit. Ichigo, who had caught him coming out of Strickler’s office, didn’t seem to agree.  
“He’s up to something,” Ichigo said on the ride home. Jim was riding on the back of Ichigo’s bike, because apparently the guy was a stickler for proper concussion care.  
“What even makes you think that?” Said Jim. “He’s a great teacher, and an upstanding type of guy. What could you possibly think is wrong with him?”  
Yesterday he gave me his contact info and encouraged me to reach out if I ever needed anything.” They pulled into the Lake driveway and dismounted the bike.  
“Oh no,” said Jim. “A teacher is concerned with the well-being and success of one of his students. Someone call the cops.” He tossed his helmet at Ichigo and headed for the front door. Ichigo put the bike and helmets away and followed.  
“You don’t get it,” he said as he caught up with Jim in the kitchen. “He was nice. The entire conversation.”  
Jim looked away from the ingredients he was gathering to look at Ichigo. “Why is that a bad thing to you?”  
“People aren’t nice to me, Jim.” Ichigo crossed his arms and scowled. He looked strangely older when he did that. “Least of all adults. The only time an adult sort of cared about me—never mind.” He cut himself off and looked away. Jim was suddenly very concerned for his cousin. Ichigo’s willingness to leave his home and family to live with an aunt and cousin he barely knew in an unfamiliar place was starting to look a lot less like the flight of whimsy he originally thought it was.  
“Ichigo.” Jim put the ingredients down and gave his cousin his full attention. “You know you can trust me, right? If there’s anything wrong, if someone hurt you—“  
“Don’t worry about me.” And Ichigo was out the door, leaving Jim feeling like he’d said something wrong.  
He didn’t go very far. He stood in the center of the backyard, arms crossed, back to the house, with the posture of a guy from one of those samurai movies Toby liked. With his scowl and shaggy, unkempt hair, it wouldn’t have been hard to pass him off as a delinquent looking for a fight.  
Jim felt very out of his depth, standing on the back steps, trying to figure out how to help a guy who didn’t want help.  
The amulet pulsed in his pocket, then. He pulled it out. It was glowing, and the metal clock hands were moving with little chiming sounds. The inscription around the edges was shifting through what seemed to be a bunch of different languages.  
“Ichigo! The amulet! It’s doing stuff!”  
“What?” Ichigo turned to face Jim. He’d started walking over when the inscription landed on English.  
“It says something!” Jim shouted, then he read “For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command.” Time seemed to slow down, and Ichigo stopped in his tracks. Jim felt… weightless… powerful. He was a bit freaked being in armor meant for a guy about eight times his size, but then it refitted itself, as if it were meant for him, and he felt.. sure. The sword was pretty cool, too.  
“Well,” said Ichigo, approaching with slight caution. “We know what the amulet does.”  
Jim looked at his cousin. He had this look on his face, like he was really alive for the first time in a while. It was the look of a guy who desperately wanted more out of life, and had finally found it. Jim probably had a pretty similar expression on his face.


End file.
